Illegal operations are widespread and fund Chinese o-crime.

Following the legalization of marijuana in many states, Chinese-run marijuana farms have emerged across the U.S. Some are run by investor groups with a commercial growing license. But just as illegal marijuana shops have proliferated, so have unlicensed growing operations.

Illegal marijuana-growing, whether on a small or large scale, isn’t a new phenomenon in the U.S. “We were all illegal at one point,” said a now-licensed grower in Maine.

Chinese growing operations have drawn special attention in recent months, especially from conservative news sites. Law-enforcement officials in several states say that while some large-scale illegal growing operations are tied to Mexican cartels and other international networks, a large number are run by Chinese transnational crime organizations.

Oklahoma has shut down nearly 1,000 marijuana farms since late 2020, with about 80% to 90% of them linked to Chinese organized crime rings, said Mark Woodward, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. “It’s an open all-cash business that requires large land purchases,” he said.

Crackdowns in Southern and Western states may explain why such operations are popping up across Maine.

The Daily Caller News Foundation, a conservative news organization, reported in August that law-enforcement agencies had identified 270 properties in Maine suspected of being used for Chinese illegal marijuana growing, citing a memo from the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Maine law-enforcement officials declined to put a number on suspected Chinese growing operations in the state. Court documents show that two other properties in Carmel were suspected of unlicensed marijuana cultivation and that the state is separately prosecuting two other suspects of Chinese origin.

“I believe that they are going for the most rural, unregulated spots they can find,” one Maine official said.

New arrivals

Chinese-operated marijuana farms often rely heavily on Chinese immigrants working under conditions indicative of human trafficking and forced labor, said Aaron Halegua, a lawyer representing Chinese workers who say they have been exploited in the cannabis industry.

In New Mexico, state prosecutors are investigating a licensed marijuana farm for alleged wage theft and human trafficking, according to workers who say they are cooperating with the probe.

One worker, who said he fled China in March after a crackdown on the underground church he was a member of, said he reached the U.S. after a treacherous journey through Central America and first found a restaurant job in New York City. When a job-placement agency promised him $150 a day for a job making herbal medicine in New Mexico, he paid more than $600 for a flight to Albuquerque in early August.

A Chinese manager picked him up at the airport. Soon after he got to the farm, he started to worry something was wrong. Workers were fed instant noodles made with cold water and slept on hard boards. Some said they hadn’t been paid. A few days after he arrived, two drones and a helicopter descended on the farm, with law-enforcement officials announcing a raid in Mandarin Chinese, he and other workers said.

“They didn’t treat us as human,” said another worker who crossed the southern U.S. border in July. He said workers weren’t allowed to leave the farm and, without a car, had no means of escape.

A spokeswoman for the state prosecutor’s office said the office is investigating a farm in Estancia, N.M., about an hour from Albuquerque. She declined to offer more information, citing a continuing investigation.

Some workers said they responded to online job ads. One website targeting Chinese-speakers offered jobs in Oklahoma under the headings of “farming and gardening,” “grass planting” or “flower arranging.” Some of the ads spelled out that the jobs were on marijuana farms.

Lucrative market

In California, Chinese networks have seized on the highly lucrative black market in marijuana growing, said Lt. Raymond Framstad of the Merced County Sheriff’s Office, who has investigated more than 20 cases involving unlicensed Chinese-run operations.

Many Chinese networks have enough equipment for several large residential operations, he said. They find the house that they want, equip it to grow marijuana a year or longer before the police crack down, then fix the property up and sell it at a profit, he said. A residential black-market growing operation can be set up for as many as six harvests a year, bringing in an annual profit of several million dollars depending on the size, said Framstad, who oversees the marijuana enforcement team at the sheriff’s office.

Even when Chinese-run growing operations operate with a license, illicit activity sometimes emerges around them, such as trade in marijuana across state lines—illegal under federal law—money laundering or human trafficking, law-enforcement officials said.